Liar's Market

by Taylor Smith

  “It’s been known to happen.”

  Carrie sat quietly for a moment, thinking, then shook her head. “No, I can’t see it happening. It would be out of character.”

  “Why is that? You said he wouldn’t want to lose a custody battle. He’d have to realize he was playing with a weak hand.”

  “That’s true. But I can’t see Drum pulling a vanishing act, walking away from everything he knows,” Carrie said. “He likes his position in life too much—being a Virginia MacNeil. Living in the big house on the Potomac. Getting a CIA deputy’s job after years of working his way up the organization. You have to understand, this is a man who’s spent his whole life trying to prove—mostly to himself—that he was as good a man as his father and worthy of the MacNeil name. He may fight me over custody, but he’s not going to give up everything he’s worked for. Not now, when he’s finally getting the recognition he feels he deserves.” She shook her head firmly. “No, I don’t think so. It couldn’t happen.”

  Even as the words left her mouth, Carrie had the sinking realization that it sounded like famous last words.

  It was well after noon when she finally got home. As she came up Elcott Road and turned in at the driveway, a uniformed police officer climbed out of one of the cruisers and walked toward her car, one hand raised, the other hovering over the gun holstered at his hip. Carrie rolled down her window and was blasted by a hot wave of thick, muggy summer air, hardly relieved by the cooling effects of the Potomac just a few dozen yards away.

  “Can I help you?” the cop asked.

  “I live here,” Carrie told him. “What’s going on?” Her first thought was Jonah. After the conversation in Heather Childers’s office, it had been all she could do to resist the temptation to join Zoë’s mother in her day-long parking lot vigil. Instead, she’d skipped her planned tour of the Torpedo Factory art galleries but had forced herself to carry on with her other errands, including the visit to the dry cleaner’s and the grocery store. Now, she had ice cream and other frozen food in the back of the station wagon that needed to be unloaded.

  “Your name?” the policeman asked.

  “Carrie MacNeil.”

  “Can I see your driver’s license, please?”

  “Yes, sure. But what’s going on here?”

  The lawyer had set off her nerves with horror stories about custody battles and kidnapping, but even without those dire warnings, Carrie’s mind was quite capable of creating nightmare scenarios all by itself after surviving a bombing in Africa and the shooting at the London Embassy. A sociopath could have attacked the rec center—Zoë’s mother, perhaps, stewing out there in the parking lot until her brain finally cooked and she snapped. Or maybe Althea had foiled a daytime robbery, or had suffered a heart attack or stroke. Or maybe someone had attacked the house, knowing it was the home of a senior CIA official. Far-fetched as all of these possibilities sounded, they were no more unlikely than some of the events Carrie had already lived through in the last few years.

  She withdrew her wallet and then her driver’s license, and handed it over with a trembling hand, waiting impatiently while the cop scrutinized and compared the photo and her face. At the top of the drive, she noticed a couple of unfamiliar cars parked near the front entrance of the house.

  The cop handed back the license. “Okay, Mrs. MacNeil, you can go on in.”

  “But what—”

  “There are people up there waiting to talk to you.”

  He backed away from her car, waving at the cop behind the wheel of the second cruiser, who started it up, put it in Reverse and edged away, clearing a path for Carrie to get by with the Passat.

  She parked beside the garage, grabbing what she could of the frozen foods in the back before hurrying toward the front steps. As she crossed the drive, she noticed a white Mercedes parked in the shade under the trees. It had D.C. plates and, unlike the other vehicles in the drive, it looked familiar. The other two cars parked alongside it were black Ford Tauruses with radio antennae, and even if she hadn’t spotted their government plates, there was no mistaking the air of officialdom that clung to them.

  So it had to be something to do with Drum, she decided. Was he hurt? She felt guilty suddenly, unable to dodge the notion that her meeting with the lawyer had somehow brought a plague down on him.

  Tucked off to the far side of the garage, invisible before now, she spotted one other vehicle, but although this one wasn’t entirely unfamiliar, it was out of place. It was a green minivan with a removable magnetic sign on the sliding side door that read, MIGHTY MAID—MIGHTY GOOD! Where had she seen it before? She racked her brain to remember, and then it came to her. Across the road, at the Kleins’. So, maybe the problem was there, she told herself hopefully, feeling sheepish for wishing ill fortune on the nice old couple.

  But as she made her way up the circular, redbrick steps to the wide front porch, the door opened, and when Carrie saw who it was, she knew why the Mercedes had seemed familiar. She’d seen Tom Bent and his wife Lorraine a couple of times since returning from London, mostly while attending Sunday services with Althea at the National Cathedral where Lorraine’s father, Bishop Merriam, had presided. The last time Carrie and Tom had really talked was at the embassy reception in London for the visiting senators—the night that young student from Maryland had been gunned down outside in the rain.

  “Tom,” Carrie said, “thank God, a friendly face—although you’re the last person I expected to see this morning. What’s going on here?”

  “Hi, darlin’,” he said. “Let me help you with those groceries. Is this it, or are there more?”

  “There’s a couple more bags in the back of the car,” Carrie replied, her stomach knotting at Tom’s sober tone. “But—”

  “Let me just run and grab them,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Carrie waited, holding the heavy front door open with her hip while he ran out and gathered up the white Safeway bags she’d left in the station wagon. He was jacketless, the sleeves of his blue pinstripe cotton shirt rolled up to his elbows, red tie loosened at the collar. A lock of his brown hair flopped over his forehead. For tidy Tom Bent, the look was shockingly disheveled.

  “Tom, what—”

  He remounted the steps and held the door to let her enter first. “Come inside. We’ll talk there.”

  Turning to enter, she spotted someone else from the corner of her eye, walking up the drive. The freckled blonde looked barely out of her teens, dressed in blue jeans and a black tank top, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was watching Carrie and Tom with a frank look that straddled curiosity and suspicion. She seemed so young that the first thought that crossed Carrie’s mind was that she must be selling high school raffle tickets. But if so, how had she managed to talk her way past those burly, unsmiling cops at the bottom of the drive?

  “Can I help you?” Carrie asked.

  “No, I’m fine, Mrs. MacNeil. I was told to report over here, that’s all. You two go ahead on in. I’m right behind you.”

  Carrie frowned and was about to argue the point—except what, exactly, was the point? Whatever was going on, clearly she was not in charge here. And how did this girl know her name?

  The house was a center hall plan, with a spacious entry and a black-and-white checkerboard of marble tile covering the vestibule floor. A round mahogany table at its center held an arrangement of the fresh flowers that Althea had delivered every week from a local florist. A large, formal living room stood off to one side of the entry hall, overlooking the front of the house, but its carved sliding panel doors were pulled shut at the moment. The dining room and a wood-lined study were on the other side of the hall, while the winding oak staircase rose up from across the vestibule. The kitchen with its solarium addition was straight ahead, at the end of a short hall.

  It was from that direction that Rose, the housekeeper, emerged, hurrying to relieve Carrie of her Safeway bags. “Let me take those, Miz Carrie.” She was a tall and strong-looking woman
with a ramrod posture that General MacNeil himself would have envied, an unlined face the color of café au lait, and hair braided from root to tip in thick, gray plaits.

  “I can put this away, Rose,” Carrie said.

  “No, you’d better go in to Miz Althea. She’s real fretful, I think.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In the parlor with the other gentlemen.”

  “Which other gentlemen?”

  “I couldn’t say exactly who they are. Mr. Tom here will be able to tell you more.” Tom stood behind Carrie with the last of the grocery bags. “Just leave them there on the bench, Mr. Tom. I’ll get them.”

  “Thank you, Rose.” He settled the plastic sacks on the brocade-padded settee under the stairs.

  “Tom, what on earth is going on?” Carrie asked.

  He nodded to the housekeeper, who hooked the handles of several additional grocery bags through her strong fingers before heading back into the kitchen. Only when the swinging door had closed behind her did Bent finally face Carrie. “Have you heard from Drum in the last hour or two?” he asked.

  “No, I haven’t. Why?”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “Earlier this morning. He was here when I came down to make breakfast for Jonah, which was a bit of a surprise. He left not long after that. Said he had a meeting.”

  “Where?”

  “Over at FBI headquarters. But he was on his way over there when they called to cancel.”

  “The Bureau called here?”

  “No, I imagine they—or his office, I’m not sure—called him on his cell phone to tell him about the cancellation.”

  “So you have spoken to him since he left home?”

  “Yes. I saw him again around nine-fifteen or so at the Asbury Park Rec Center. Jonah’s enrolled in day camp there. I had already dropped Jonah off, but then I returned about twenty minutes later because I found his asthma inhaler rolling around my car. I was worried he might need it. That’s when I realized Drum had shown up.”

  “What was he doing at the rec center?”

  She hesitated. “He said he wanted to watch Jonah’s swim class, except it’s not until this afternoon.”

  “You don’t sound like you believe that’s the real reason.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s possible. I’m not sure. If it was, though, it’s a first. Not surprising he didn’t know there was no chance he’d catch Jonah in the pool. Drum usually leaves Jonah’s school and extracurricular activities to me to organize and attend. He never even made it to the Christmas pageant last year. Missed Jonah’s stage debut as one of the three ‘wise guys,’ as he called them.”

  Tom smiled. “That would have been something to see.” Then he sobered again. “So, you saw Drum at day camp, and then?”

  “He left before me.”

  “Where did he say he was going after that.”

  Carrie frowned. “To the office. I’m pretty sure that’s where he said he was headed. Why? What’s happened?”

  “He never showed up.”

  “What do you mean? Where is he?”

  Tom shook his head. “Did you have any sense he was unhappy or worried about anything, Carrie? Did he seem out of sorts at all lately?”

  “I’m not—”

  Just then, the wood panel doors to the living room slid open. A very large, very bald and very fierce-looking man loomed in the opening. Dressed in a navy open-necked golf shirt and casual gray slacks that seemed decidedly downscale next to Tom’s striped Oxford dress shirt, rep tie and Brooks Brothers suit pants, the man nevertheless exuded the kind of authority that comes with great size and a scowling black laser-beam focus.

  “Carrie,” Tom said, “this is Frank Tucker, also from Langley. He’s head of a special security unit the Director set up recently. Frank, this is Drum’s wife, Carrie.”

  Tucker nodded. “Mrs. MacNeil, would you step in here, please?”

  Peering around him, Carrie spotted her mother-in-law sitting on one of the chintz-covered wing chairs that flanked the unlit river stone fireplace. A tall, thin, angular woman with pure white hair that she had done every Friday at the same Pentagon City hairdresser, Althea looked peevish and fretful—although there was nothing terribly unusual in that, Carrie reminded herself. Her mother-in-law could find something to bemoan on the sunniest of days. Even when things were going very well, Althea would be sure to predict it wouldn’t last, then recount a story about one acquaintance or another who seemed to be on top of the world one day, only to be diagnosed the next with some virulent form of cancer.

  “Well, here she is, at last,” Althea said. She was dressed in a sleeveless black-and-white-checked blouse, white Bermuda shorts, with white Peds and canvas shoes on her overlarge feet.

  “Are you all right?” Carrie asked.

  Althea nodded peevishly. “Yes, of course I’m all right.”

  Tucker stood aside to let Carrie pass into the living room. “Come in here, if you would, please, Mrs. MacNeil.”

  But instead of going forward, she took a step back. “No. First, I want to know if my son is safe.”

  “Why wouldn’t he be?”

  Carrie turned to Tom. “Where’s Drum, Tom?”

  “That’s the problem, darlin’. We’re not exactly sure.”

  “Oh, God,” Carrie groaned, heart sinking. “That’s it, then. I want to go and get Jonah right now.”

  “You’re not surprised to learn that your husband’s whereabouts are a mystery, Mrs. MacNeil?” Tucker asked.

  “I want my son.”

  Tucker shook his head. “Not until—”

  “No! Right now,” Carrie insisted, hooking her purse higher up on her shoulder and gripping her car keys.

  “Carrie, I’m sure Jonah’s fine,” Tom said.

  “I’ll believe that when I see him. You don’t understand, Tom. I went to see a lawyer this morning.”

  “You what?”

  She glanced nervously at her mother-in-law and turned back to the vestibule, lowering her voice. “I’m thinking of leaving Drum. I think he might have gotten wind of it.” She glanced behind her into the living room, where Althea was sitting straighter now, watching her through the open doorway with a look of utter fury. Carrie turned back to Tom. “If Drum did find out about it, he might have decided to snatch Jonah to prevent me from getting custody.”

  Tucker had been leaning in to catch her urgent whispers, but then he glanced over her head. When Carrie looked up for the source of the distraction, she saw the freckled, ponytailed blonde just inside the front door. She hadn’t heard her come in.

  “Tengwall,” Tucker said to her, “I want you to head back over to the little boy’s camp. Confirm he’s okay, then radio back ASAP, would you? Mrs. MacNeil,” he added to Carrie, “Tengwall here works for me.”

  “I want my son where I can see him.”

  “Fine. She’ll bring the boy back to the house. You phone the camp and tell them to expect her. Tell them there’s been a family emergency and you’ve sent your cousin, Brianne, to pick up your son.”

  “I’d rather—”

  “She’s armed and fully capable of bodyguard duty,” Tucker said.

  Carrie blanched. “Armed? You think that’s necessary?”

  “Just so you know he’ll be okay with me,” the young woman said. “I like kids, Mrs. MacNeil. I used to be a camp counselor myself.”

  Right, Carrie thought. Just last year, I bet.

  “Jonah will be fine, I promise. I’ll have him home in half an hour. Just call and tell them I’m coming, would you? Otherwise they won’t let me take him.”

  “I’d rather pick him up myself.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Tucker said. “We have to ask you to stay here.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  Tom put a hand on her arm. “Carrie, it’s for the best. Trust me.”

  “I trust you, Tom, but these people…. Look, can I see some identification, please? I’m not about to let
just anybody take charge of my son.”

  Tucker and Tengwall both produced federal identification cards that matched the one Drum had, identifying them as officers of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  “This is insane,” Carrie said, shaking her head. “All right, but first, I want to call the camp and satisfy myself that Jonah’s actually there.”

  She reached in her purse, fished out a small address book and looked up the number of the rec center switchboard. Then, withdrawing her cell phone, she put in the call, glanced at her watch as the phone rang on the other end, then asked to be connected to Mindy Steinberg at the day camp program.

  “He’s in the pool, Mrs. MacNeil,” Mindy said when she came on the line a few moments later and Carrie asked after Jonah. “The Sharks just had their swimming lesson and they’re on free swim right now. I was just down there watching them. Jonah showed me his trick dive. That’s the one where he crossed his fingers, crosses his hands, crosses his legs—”

  “And crosses his eyes,” Carrie said, smiling as she nodded. “I know. He was showing me at bedtime last night. So he’s doing all right, then? You’re sure?”

  “Sure. In fact,” Mindy said, “I’m walking out on the deck now with the portable phone and I can see him…um…hmmm…”

  “What?” Carrie felt her heart begin to pound in her chest. “Is he there, Mindy? Can you actually see him?”

  “I don’t…no, never mind, I do see him. Yup, there he is,” Mindy said. “They’re playing Marco Polo. Listen. You can probably hear him.”

  She must have been holding the phone up to the pool, because Carrie could make out childish squeals echoing around the pool’s tile walls and voices calling, “Marco! Polo!” in cheerful repetition.

  Mindy came back on the line with a deep sigh. “Boy, by the end of the summer, I can tell you, every counselor here positively hates that game.”

  “I can imagine,” Carrie said. She glanced over to where the big man—Tucker—was watching her, black eyes flashing impatience. “Look, Mindy, I’m afraid Jonah has to leave a little early today. We’ve got a family thing going on here. My…um…friend—” she raised an eyebrow at the young blond woman, who held up her CIA identification as a reminder “—Brianne Tengwall is going to pick him up in about fifteen minutes. Can you have him ready to go?”